INLAND RAIL LAYOUT

Words: Australian Model Railway Magazine.

Mark Jesser builds a diorama of ARTC’s Inland Rail.

I recently completed a diorama for the Inland Rail project community consultation team to display at their public events and careers expos.

The diorama was different to what I had done before with this being built in HO scale and a static model. The brief was it had to be a construction theme aligning with realistic safety precautions and it needed to be interactive.

I drew up four designs with different track configurations and different vehicles to be included. The Inland Rail staff picked a concept of a operating mainline with a passing loop and wanted to add a track being ‘constructed’ beside the existing line.

The diorama needed to be portable and easy to set up as it was going to be transported around regional New South Wales (NSW).

To fit this brief, a single module (600 x 1200 x 100mm) was constructed using a aluminium ‘qubelok’ frame and 4mm ply top and sides. A 12mm perspex screen was designed to be bolted on to protect the layout. To house the display a custom roadie-style case was made in Melbourne by Protectapack.

I cut sections from the 4mm ply baseboard and then 4mm ply and 3mm ply were stacked underneath in sections, adding negative terrain to give the impression of significant earth works to the area.

Track was laid on cork and edges were cut on an angle. For the terrain, chucks wipes were covered in polyvinyl acetate (PVA) to create the gradient effect between the layers of timber. I then covered it with a thin layer of sculpta mould. Paint and sifted grout were applied. Tyre marks were added to dry-sifted grout using cheap hot wheels vehicles that had good tyre tread, before it was all sprayed with isopropyl alcohol and diluted PVA to lock it all in.

The key vehicle was the crane (from Siku), with the crane being sprayed matte and painted in sections to add detail to the model. Once set in place, the crane was glued into position.

Other vehicles were from Herpa, with many Auscision Models drivers being added inside the vehicle cabs for realism. The SCT class locomotive was from Railmotor Models and the wagons were from Auscision Models.

Structures were custom made or purchased with slight weathering applied. Signals and level crossing lights were made by Handmade Accessories in Tasmania. Road signs are from ‘The Train Girl’ and people from Noch. Bollards were made from styrene rod and bases were laser cut from black styrene sheet.

I created road markings by laser-cutting through masking tape, carefully placing these pieces on the road and then spray-painting the road. Static grass is from ‘Ground Up Scenery’ and trees were sourced from Ron’s ‘Australian Model Trees’.

The diarama runs on six 9v batteries with six separate circuits (bus wires) operating to help spread the load on the batteries. Wires are zip-tied underneath to cable tie mounts with all circuits being wired back to their bus wire. A hole was cut in the top of the baseboard for access to the batteries once the display is set up on the table and a top is magnetised on, hiding the

batteries.

Overall, there are 56 lights able to be used on the layout with some constantly on and others being operated on timers. Tiny orange surface mount device (SMD) light emitting diode (LEDs) were placed on top of all vehicles to reflect the safety rules applied around ARTC’s worksites. Flashing lights are controlled using cheap eBay flashing circuits purchased for a dollar each.

Some of these circuits were modified with different capacitors to slow down the flashing speed. I used an Arduino with a custom code to give the crane a unique flashing pattern.

Timers and push buttons work to control the level crossing flashing lights; thermo weld circuit plus a simple mp3 sound module (with a custom sound file) create the level crossing sound when activated by the push button. Other buttons turn on extra flashing lights and the locomotive headlight.

The SCT class locomotive and wagons are fixed down with wire, the locomotive internals were removed, and holes drilled into the mechanism to allow for the wire to be secure and locked in underneath the board. Vehicles are glued down but also wired down for extra safety when being transported.

This project took three months to complete and it can seen on public display

at Inland Rail events in regional NSW.